Insider Selling: GRAIL (NASDAQ:GRAL) CEO Sells 20,000 Shares of Stock

GRAIL, Inc. (NASDAQ:GRAL) CEO Joshua Ofman sold 20,000 shares of GRAIL stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $136.85, for a total value of $2,737,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 342,271 shares in the company, valued at $46,839,786.35. This represents a 5.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

GRAIL Stock Performance

GRAL traded down $17.65 on Friday, reaching $117.81. 1,303,359 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 977,662. The company’s 50 day moving average is $97.82 and its 200-day moving average is $74.70. The company has a market cap of $5.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.08 and a beta of 2.83. GRAIL, Inc. has a twelve month low of $41.50 and a twelve month high of $166.48.

GRAIL (NASDAQ:GRAL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported ($2.56) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($2.66) by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $44.69 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $42.39 million. GRAIL had a negative net margin of 236.95% and a negative return on equity of 15.88%. Sell-side analysts forecast that GRAIL, Inc. will post -10.41 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently issued reports on GRAL. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of GRAIL from $96.00 to $118.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 22nd. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of GRAIL from $65.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 25th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of GRAIL in a report on Thursday. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of GRAIL from $88.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Guggenheim increased their price target on GRAIL from $75.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 1st. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, GRAIL presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $119.80.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On GRAIL

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. increased its stake in GRAIL by 20.5% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 3,577,075 shares of the company’s stock worth $244,207,000 after buying an additional 608,539 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in GRAIL by 26.1% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,385,514 shares of the company’s stock valued at $162,859,000 after buying an additional 493,621 shares during the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA purchased a new position in GRAIL in the 2nd quarter valued at about $148,836,000. Baker BROS. Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of GRAIL by 27.9% during the fourth quarter. Baker BROS. Advisors LP now owns 2,085,333 shares of the company’s stock valued at $178,484,000 after acquiring an additional 455,208 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE grew its stake in shares of GRAIL by 29.0% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 914,114 shares of the company’s stock valued at $47,241,000 after acquiring an additional 205,611 shares in the last quarter.

GRAIL Company Profile

GRAIL, Inc is a healthcare company focused on developing blood-based technologies for the early detection of cancer. Its goal is to identify cancer signals before symptoms appear, when treatment may be more effective, by applying genomics, machine learning and other analytical methods to blood samples.

The company’s primary product is the Galleri multi-cancer early detection test, a prescription laboratory-developed test designed to screen for signals associated with multiple types of cancer from a single blood draw.